Les Miserables Group Fanfiction
by JenValjean24601
Summary: A Les Miserables Online Group Fanfiction! Anyone is welcome to write a chapter. For more information, see my profile. Chapter Seven by Ithilmir, Thoughts of a Gamin.
1. The Watchmaker by JenValjean24601

Things had been slow. Things had been very slow.

When Javert was first transferred to Paris, there had been lots to do. Papers needed filing, orders needed to be given, officers needed to be evaluated, and patrol routes needed to be set. All of these simple duties Javert carried out with relish. Organizational work, which many abhorred, never bothered him. Such details were necessary, Javert believed, for things to _work._ And Javert liked it when things _worked_.

So the Inspector laboured for months on these menial tasks. Like a skilled watchmaker, he perfected each screw, each cog, and spring of his life-sized machine, and assembled them in working order. He then stepped back to admire his handiwork; why, the department had been in shambles before his arrival! But before long, Javert's pleasure at seeing his precinct work dissipated. The watch was fixed, nothing left to do but sit and watch it tick!

And that was dull.

Javert well remembered that dullness. He remembered sitting around for days on end with nothing to do but stare out the window, taking the occasional pinch of snuff to keep him awake. He remembered dealing with nothing but petty criminals who could hardly recall their own names, let alone plan out a successful robbery. Javert remembered this dullness so well because he was feeling it again, almost ten years later.

It was a crisp October morning, and this matter is what Javert ruminated on as he was walking to the prefecture. The problem had been nagging at the back of his mind for some time now, yet still the solution was nowhere in sight. He could not very well smash his own watch again, but the thought of enduring another day of apple-stealing buffoons, and dimwitted prostitutes was unbearable.

To be precise, Javert just sometimes yearned for a grandfather clock to repair instead of a pocket watch. That was all.  
Javert arrived at the prefecture in good time. He drew out the old key to the building, and brought it up to the lock. He was just about to unlock the door when a loud yell startled him. Disturbed, Javert turned around to look for the source of the noise. He saw nothing. When he was finally convinced that there was nothing amiss, he turned back around to let himself inside.

The cry sounded again. And again. Then finally, a cacophony of yells shot forth from the general direction of the nearby square in front of the Notre Dame cathedral.

This was the kind of excitement that Javert was longing for! He put away his key, and hurried over to see what was the matter.


	2. Riffraff by nebulia

Gavroche huddled in an alley, nursing a loaf of bread.

A whole loaf, he thought happily. A whole loaf all to myself!

He carefully bit off a chunk of the still-warm bread, his eyes glazing over at the wonderful taste of it. He ate some more, and too soon the bread was gone; however, the gnawing hunger in his stomach was not.

Not ready to leave his hiding place, Gavroche glanced out into the square. He had chosen a good spot to watch and wait for the baker to calm down; the square in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral was always busy, and no one bothered to look in the alleyways.

"Down with the government!" a man cried. He was standing on a table, or perhaps it was a soapbox, and giving a speech across from the cathedral. His blond hair glimmered in the sunlight.

Interested, Gavroche turned his attention to the man. He was still speaking, but the gamin could hardly hear him. In fact, Gavroche was too far away to hear anything but mumbling. He was about to crawl out of his spot to get a closer look when the baker's wife came by, looking in all the crevasses, mumbling about the stupid little urchins who ran the streets wild. He dodged back into the alley and turned his attention back on the man as best he could.

The man was quiet now; he seemed to be listening to another man in the crowd around him ask something. Then the first man responded, his voice beginning softly, and ending in a near shout. This got the attention of a couple policemen standing outside the cathedral. They marched over to the crowd, and began pushing through the mob.

Just before they got to the man, a big burly fellow stopped them. He towered a good six inches higher than the taller of the two, and he very gently pushed them back in warning. Several more policemen, who had been stationed around the square, joined the two.

"Hey!"

A harsh whisper caused Gavroche to spin around. He recognized the young man immediately. "Parnasse"

"What's up?" Montparnasse asked. "What's the fuss in there?"

"A brawl," Gavroche responded happily. "They're going t'have a brawl, with the _cognes_ and everything!"

Montparnasse grinned. "Think any of 'em have money"

"Some of 'em are dressed fine, that's for certain"  
Montparnasse nodded. "Excellent." He vanished into the shadows of the alley, and it was hardly a minute later when Gavroche saw several men exit another alley, much closer to the mob.

He smiled. Gavroche loved a brawl.

Soon the argument between the burly fellow and the policemen turned to shoving. The big man let out a shout that probably could have been heard in England, and threw a punch. Suddenly, the crowd of men was a mass of bodies in the center of the square. Men ran in and joined the fight, and urchins rushed around the edges, kicking and shouting and picking up the occasional coin.

Gavroche grinned. He wasn't one to miss out on a fight. He ran out of the alleyway, and in moments he had joined the other gamins and was happily yelling with the rest of them.


	3. Better than the Theatre by Elyse3

The echoing _bang_ of a gunshot was heard before Javert could get through the crowd. Scowling in frustration at the gaggle of people who were all too eager to loiter directly in his path, Javert thrust his way in front of a flower- seller and a baker.

He was met with a strange sight. A burly man, with a strong resemblance to the stained glass portrait of Goliath in the Cathedral, lay sprawled on the ancient cobblestones. A gunshot wound to the shoulder stained the white linen of his shirt to match the bonnet rouge that had fallen to his side. Beside him crouched a blond man, who looked every inch the avenging angel, save for a red vest, partially hidden under a white overcoat; a bloody and vibrant tie between him and the fallen figure of Goliath. In the few seconds of stunned silence as people regarded this sight, Javert scanned the small, close circle around the crime with an attitude of decided whimsy (brought on by the proximity of the crime to the church, no doubt.)

A young girl and her elderly father stood to the right of Javert. They looked lost, as if they had ended up in the circle by accident. The girl stood partially turned towards Javert with her gloved hands to her lips, her wide eyes a shocking blue against her paled complexion. Her wide bonnet blocked Javert's view of her father, though Javert could still see strands of very white hair blowing in the slight breeze, and a black top hat held out to the center of the circle, as if the man wanted to help the wounded Goliath up. They stood as still and silent as the statues of the saints near Notre- Dame.

On his left was a drunken man of a slovenly aspect: his cravat was loose, his vest unbuttoned, his overcoat and jacket misplaced, and his stained breeches reeked of cheap brandy. His face was twisted, and he stooped forward, either concerned over the shooting or unable to balance himself upright. Javert was unpleasantly reminded of the gargoyles that leered at the crowd from their high perch on the cathedral.

Directly in front of Javert was a group of street urchins, clad in the dull brown tatters that marked every child of the streets. They twittered amongst themselves at the drama that unfolded before them. Javert distinctly heard one exclaim, delighted, "_Foutre_! This is better than the theatre! The blood never looks half so real, there!" They resembled the sparrows playing irreverently on the cathedral steps, devoid, as they were, of any concern for the wounded man.

Next to the urchins stood some of his police force, looking stunned, and staring at one another as if unsure of what to do. One had lost his cap, and the outrageous red curls that adorned his head (and that Javert secretly hated) were tousled by the wind. _Ah_, Javert thought in slight amusement and slight annoyance, _here we have the women, shocked at the absence of Christ from the tomb, as portrayed in a tapestry for posterity._

To the left of the urchins stood a student, books clasped loosely in his arms. His linen was clean and pressed (it looked particularly so when he stood next to the urchins) but his black suit was fraying. It still held the air of respectability about it, and the student looked as gravely formal and solemn as any _abbé_. With narrowed eyes, Javert recognized him as that dolt of a lawyer who had forgotten to fire the pistols, and had run away.

Next to the idiot lawyer was another student, whose hair and glasses seemed at war over his gray eyes. He was shocked, a quill pen having dropped from his hand and fluttered to the ground. Javert was strongly reminded of his (repressed) childhood days, when his intoxicated cousin Carmen had waltzed up to the village priest, wrapped her arms about his waist, kissed him passionately and declared she was married to a chicken and a goat named Lucifer. The priest had that same shocked, appalled expression.

Montparnasse, who Javert had been chasing for months, was stealthily picking the pocket of the gray- eyed. _Ah, the devil joins the circle._

These observations were completed in the space of a few seconds. He had also noted that though his officers stood directly in front of the toppled Goliath and the cold, avenging angel, none of them had a gun out. In fact, there was not a gun in sight, not even on Montparnasse.

"Please, monsieur," the girl in the bonnet asked tremulously, clasping her hands to her chest in an attitude of prayer. "Can you do something?" Javert noted that the hem of her gown (it was some color of white- it wasn't really white, but Javert didn't know enough about color to know its name) hung half- loose, there was a tear in her skirt, and her entire outfit had been recently muddied. She was very pale, and Javert noted (in the back of his mind) that she was a rather distinctive beauty- a witness he could certainly find again. Her bonnet was askew, further blocking Javert's view of her father.

Interesting.

"_Foutre_, it's Maitre Javert!" cried one of the little sparrows, pointing a grimy hand.

This caused an immediate stir. Half the people fled, including Montparnasse and the student's wallet. His officers busied themselves, shouting pompously. Their only effect was to add to the general chaos, as workers ran, startled women scampered off, remembering propriety, and the urchins appeared to perform a disjointed version of the carmagnole. This would not do.

Javert scowled and once more shoved his way through the crowd.


	4. Cine Lumiere by ArgentineRose

All of this, of course, despite its detail, took place almost within the blink of an eye. 

In a space of time which was longer than a second, but not by very much, a sort of enchantment had descended over the square. It was as if time itself had slowed down to enquire what all the fuss was about, leaving, for just a moment, the whole scene devoid of impetus, sound muted and images sharper, the only energy that of potential so that it could be observed at leisure like a wax tableau and throwing some details - red hair in the breeze, the torn hem of a girl's dress - into intense relief .

The only way to describe the process is with a lexicon unavailable to those who were experiencing it; that of film. The idea of slow motion, of freeze frame, would be as unthinkable to them as it is as unthinkable to us to picture such an incident without it.

Only three of those present had any instinctive understanding of the phenomenon. The first was Gavroche, who frequented every theatre in town with great regularity and thus was well used to, and took great delight in, scenes from life that were not quite like life at all.

The second was the young girl in the large bonnet and the torn dress, who suddenly felt that she was seeing things with the sort of clarity that she had never experienced in her waking life before. That she should have this understanding was unusual since she had never so much as been to the theatre before.

The third of these was, naturally, Maitre Javert himself, whose mental faculties were well honed when it came to observing and processing what went on around him. Javert, like Gavroche, had a naturally theatrical bent and, had he not chosen a career dissecting the world around him, might have done well in the theatre putting new worlds together on stage.

Instinct now told Javert that this moment of shocked calm could not hold: already those closest to the excitement were trying to back away from it, their progress away from the scene impeded by those further off trying to move closer and get a good look. The gendarmes (most of them hot-headed idiots) were panicking, drawing weapons and poising themselves for action. Javert knew that the civilians around him could be divided into two categories by their reactions to such actions on the part of the police - those who would choose flight, and those who would choose fight. Both were liable to lead to chaos. A sergeant de ville drew his sword and instinct told Javert that all hell was about to break loose.

At that moment another shot rang out across the square and he was proved right.

The freeze frame was over, live action was restored and the square rapidly descended into a free for all street battle. Gendarme coshed student, workman attacked cogne, gamin kicked the shins of anybody within reach. The original centre of the commotion, the fallen Goliath and his avenging angel, were obscured in a maelstrom of legs, arms, canes, swords, irate fishwives, bleeding revolutionaries, spooked horses, grim faced policemen, sticks, stones and a whole variety of obscene insults. And the chaos grew, threatening to suck all Paris in like Charybdis.

Although no longer mere observers, something did occur in the back of the minds of Gavroche, Javert and the girl in the large bonnet that no-one else had noticed.

Their observation was simply this: neither shot had been fired by anyone standing within the square. The unknown marksman had to be somewhere outside the chaos he had created.


	5. Detained by AmZ

The second shot hit no one in particular and everyone at once. In the blink of an eye, all hell broke loose.

It took a solid half hour on the part of the soldiers, the gendarmes (whom Treilhard had rebaptised into "municipal guards" a year ago, which was just about the only thing he'd done during his forty-nine glorious days as Prefect) and the inspectors to clear the square and restore traffic. It might've happened quicker, but the shots attracted to the square three mounted National Guardsmen, who naturally did what any bunch of fat incompetent civilian slobs without proper police or military training would do in their place: trotted on everyone's feet and contributed heartily to the general panic.

The crowd had not been at all politically charged and no one besides a couple of boisterous sots offered any real resistance. What Javert had initially taken to be an audacious political stunt by the Republicans – pontificating right under the Prefect's windows – was quickly re-classified by him as a "Lunchtime Spectacle." The windbag's attentive audience was mostly comprised of _marchandes_, fishwives and a medley of docks workers, all of them out to take in some entertainment with their midday meal. The only ones with any political intent in the gathering were the few students assembled around the blond _provocateur_. They also offered no resistance to the policemen, although Javert was certain that at least one of them – the girlishly pretty black-haired boy with the air of a nervous abbot – allowed himself to be seated into the black fiacre without making a fuss not because he had made up his mind to bear the ordeal with dignity, but out of simple lack of comprehension of what was happening to him.

As the fiacres stuffed with students and the over-excited rowdies rolled off towards Place du Chatelet, the last of the "flying ambulances" bearing the wounded departed for Hotel Dieu and the coach bearing the sole victim set off for the Morgue, Javert allowed himself to recall to the "other" detained. There were three of them: a well-dressed bourgeois girl of about sixteen and her aged father (or perhaps youngish grandfather), both of whom had stood at very close proximity to the assassinated man, and a gamin of nine or ten, whose too-thoughtful mien had caught Javert's eye in the split second before the second shot rang out. On Javert's insistence, the girl and her father had been escorted by two "municipal guards" towards a fiacre waiting near Pont Neuf, a good distance away from the excitement. As for the gamin, Javert personally handed him over for supervision to one of Coco Lacour's men, a veteran agent with a rap sheet that read like a bad novella and a father of six. They were going to wait up for him this evening at the "suite of cabinets" on Rue Sainte-Anne. He had to meet up with Vidocq anyhow – might as well kill two birds with one stone.

After dispatching the last team of inspectors back to Place du Chatelet to deliver the final report, Javert set off briskly towards the fiacre with his two bourgeois witnesses. Truth be told, he had only a very general idea of what he wanted to accomplish by separating them from the general mélange that was being shoved into "salad-tossers" and carted off to prison depots for questioning. He didn't have a chance to get a good look at either the father or the daughter before he gave the orders to take them away. But something told him that he needed to handle these people personally, and Javert was not one to discount professional intuition. And now that circumstances permitted him to think of things other than the immediate safety of civilians caught under fire and the hooves of spooked horses, he decided that it would be best to question his witnesses immediately. Who could tell what bizarre and fantastic untruths both of them, and the girl especially, might invent about the murder after several fretful hours?

Javert found both of them in relatively downbeat spirits, although there was no cursing or ranting on the part of the father and no hysterics or fainting on the part of the girl. And yet despite their exterior calm, Javert could see plainly that both were scared out of their wits. The man's head was lowered and his hands shook visibly in his sleeves. The girl was frowning, moving her lips soundlessly, as if arguing with herself, and tracing geometric figures on her window with a dainty finger.

Javert took a long, hard look at both his captives, then slowly raised a hand and pushed the man's wide-brimmed hat up from his eyes. The man did not react for a moment, then sighed and took his hat off altogether, rubbing his face slowly and wearily, as if wiping off a week's worth of labor sweat. He said nothing, but nothing needed to be said. They both knew Javert had recognized him.

Somewhat dazed, Javert swiped off his own top hat and took the seat next to Valjean. The thought occurred to him that he should say something friendly to calm down the young lady, but she was taking no notice of him, and he decided against it. It was probably just as well: his stock of pleasantries appropriate for bourgeois women consisted of "Lovely weather we're having today," which was a work-horse that got him through about twenty to thirty percent of all occasions; "You have a lovely home, Madame," which carried him through about another fifteen; and "Your children (cats, dogs, parakeets, and, on one occasion, mice) are delightful," which took care of most of the rest, given how many bourgeois women compulsively surrounded themselves with small squawking things of various species. For this occasion he had no ready line. "Hey, aren't you the daughter of that whore I booked seven years ago for Drunk-and-Disorderly" just didn't have a ring to it.

"Driver," Javert called out as he picked up the hem of his overcoat from where it got pinched by the door of the fiacre, " - to the Champs Elysees."

"I think after all that's happened, some time in the park ought to do all three of us a world of good," he added and smiled the sweetest smile in his arsenal at Valjean.

* * *

"I have only one request: let her go." 

Javert cocked an eyebrow.

"Why?" he replied out loud.

"Because it's me you want, and she is innocent of all of this."

"We are none of us innocent, Monsieur Madeleine," Javert pronounced with mocking didacticism. "The Congregation being still rather in vogue with the government, and the doctrine of the Original Sin being still rather in vogue with the Congregation. _Ceterus paribus._"

Valjean frowned. This strange cynic sounded nothing like the Javert he knew.

"What good could possibly come of your detaining her?"

Javert sighed and lowered his voice.

"Has anyone ever told you that you are a monster of vanity, Valjean? I don't suppose it has even occurred to you that I could be interested in what _she_ has to say about this bloody mess? Her having been in the closest geographical proximity, as it were?.."

The end of the last sentence was a barely audible murmur - Javert had become distracted by something outside.

"You think she murdered that man!" Valjean was having trouble keeping his voice down. "How co…"

"I _think_ very little," said Javert, cutting him off in mid-word. "I make inquiries; I construct theories; I seek evidence; I draw conclusions. I _think_ only that this little café under those pretty elms looks absolutely perfect for our little chat. Driver! drop us off here."


	6. Pleasantries by JenValjean24601

Moments later, Javert, Jean Valjean, and the young girl-Javert could not recall her name-were seated in three dainty, wrought iron chairs outside of the Café Vérité. Three ancient elm threes grew nearby, their myriad leaves all at the height of autumn colour, and their long branches created a canopy under which the strange threesome sat. A few isolated birds flew overhead, no doubt getting a late start to their yearly migration. _It is really a lovely place_, Javert mused. _More the setting for some romantic tryst than a police interrogation. But such is life._

Presently, a waiter came over, bearing a few bottles of red wine and a small writing tablet. "Good afternoon!" he greeted effulgently, as he deftly lit the solitary candle that sat on the table with his free hand. "Wine?" he offered, holding out a small bottle of cabernet.

"Thank you," Javert replied. "I would be happy to accept." He then turned to Jean Valjean and the girl. "For you, _sir_?" he asked, placing a particular emphasis on the word 'sir.' "Or for you, young miss?"

Neither Jean Valjean nor the girl said anything. Javert was not surprised by this, and paid the waiter with a few sous.

"Why, thank you, sir!" the waiter exclaimed. He placed the bottle of wine on the table, and then produced a tall wineglass from behind his back. While he uncorked the bottle, he inquired, "May I please take your orders?" He turned to the young girl first. "What would you like, pretty miss?"

The girl hung her head, and remained silent.

"Cosette," Jean Valjean whispered to her. "That man is speaking to you. Please be polite and answer him."

Cosette meekly looked up and said, "I'm not very hungry, thank you."

The waiter looked surprised, but instead asked Jean Valjean the same question. He answered in the same manner as Cosette. The waiter turned to Javert. "For you, sir?"

Javert smirked at Jean Valjean, and then ordered. "Yes, I will have a cup of your onion soup with a small order of roast mutton. I'd like a baguette to be brought out with my meal, and don't skimp on the butter."

"Is that all, sir?"

"Why don't you bring out a bit of brie with the bread, as well?"

"Yes, sir. Your food will be out shortly." The waiter turned around with a small flourish and left. Javert watched him go.

When the waiter was out of earshot, Javert looked at Jean Valjean and Cosette with a wolfish grin. "Now, let's start the interrogation, shall we?"


	7. A Matter of Age by AmZ

The girl paled and hid her little white hands under the table. Javert noticed that she had pulled her handkerchief out of her purse and was silently tearing it to ribbons.

"May I proceed, Monsieur… what do you go by these days anyway?"

"Fauchelevent," said Valjean quietly.

Javert tore some crust off a piece of bread, which had just been provided to him by the obsequious waiter, tossed it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, as if savoring the information and the food with the same nerve endings.

"That's interesting," he said after swallowing. "I do recall a Fauchelevent, but I do not recall you being him."

"That's my uncle," suddenly spoke up Cosette without lifting her eyes from the table.

"Ah," said Javert, raising his eyebrows at the outburst. "Well, let it be so."

"I beg you, please let me send her home," pleaded Valjean softly, desperate to make himself heard to Javert and unheard to Cosette. "She is as innocent as a lamb – she has done nothing to deserve this! I don't want her to hear about me... For God's sake…"

"What is your name, mademoiselle?" asked Javert, ignoring Valjean's frantic whispers.

Cosette remained mute, petrified by her own earlier boldness. Javert waited.

"Answer the gentleman, dear," encouraged Valjean softly. "Answer him."

"I promise, mademoiselle, my bark is worse than my bite," said Javert with a thin smile. "What is your name?"

"Euphrasie Fauchelevent," came the barely audible reply.

"Euphrasie. A beautiful name. And how old are you, mademoiselle Fauchelevent?"

There was no trace of sarcasm to Javert's words, and Valjean suddenly felt intensely grateful to the man for not disputing a surname which he knew for certain to be false.

"Sixteen."

"Sixteen!" exclaimed Javert with the same peculiar smile. "Ah! A beautiful age. I often wish I were sixteen again."

"Really?" asked Cosette, recovering some of her earlier daring.

"Really," affirmed Javert and swirled the dregs of his wine in the wineglass. "But then I recall how life was at sixteen and I quickly un-wish it again. All in all, I prefer being old."

"I can't hardly imagine being old," said Cosette. Her hands had ceased tearing at her handkerchief under the table, Javert noticed, and were now straightening out the shreds, as if in apology.

"Why imagine at all?" shrugged Javert. "Just ask your fond father. He knows all about being old. Monsieur must be around sixty, I presume?" he continued half-turning to Valjean and assuming a comically ingratiating air. "I'm rather bad with ages, so don't hesitate to correct me, mademoiselle. Is he sixty? Or maybe closer to seventy?"

Javert made a show of peering intently at Valjean's white hair. "Ah, I see! Your grandfather is seventy-three, isn't he? Still not there? Seventy-four, perhaps?"

Cosette bit her lip to keep the corners of her mouth from rising. Javert noticed this. Valjean, however, was still staring with dejection at the oilskin covering the table and so did not.

"Seventy-five? No? Seventy-seven then?"

Valjean, who had convinced himself easily that any amount of mockery was worth Cosette's ensured freedom and safety and who had been sitting perfectly still in his chair, suddenly became aware of a new sound over the merry bustle of the cafe. Someone was tittering.

"Eighty?" forged on Javert. "No, no, on second thought, don't correct me - I'll get it eventually. Eighty-four? Eighty-six? Eighty-eight? Your great-grandfather is eighty-eight? A famous age to be, eighty-eight. No one ever asks you to help tidy up the house, and they bring you your teeth in a glass for supper."

There was a peal of muffled laughter, and Valjean raised his eyes in astonishment to see Cosette hide her face in her palms, elbows on the table and shoulders shaking helplessly.

"And now I seem to have said something funny," continued Javert, as if to himself. "I beg your pardon heartily, mademoiselle. I see my error now. Of course, I should have never meant to imply that monsieur was a day under ninety. That was indeed a silly thought, and I was a silly man for thinking it. My goodness, one can barely see his nose amidst all the wrinkles! I've got it now: your great-great-grandfather is ninety-five!"

"A hundred!" half-exclaimed half-gasped Cosette from behind her hands. "A hundred and ten!"

"Impossible," countered Javert with the same grave mien. "For starters, he still has hair. I know for a certain fact that it is illegal in the Department of Seine to have hair on one's head past the age of one hundred and eight, even though it be perfectly white. An ordinance has been in effect with regard to this matter ever since a complaint was lodged twenty years ago with the Paris municipal authorities by an aged Auvergnat of one hundred and eight against his one hundred and twenty-seven year old mother. It seems the matron had the habit of communicating her displeasure with him by pulling on his locks."

People from the neighboring tables were starting to turn around at the sound of

Cosette's now unrepressed mirth.

"I don't see why you laugh at this, mademoiselle, when it is perfectly true," continued Javert with a slight frown. "I have recently had the occasion to review the files concerning this case, and it was quite a tragic story: apparently, every time the plaintiff sat down to eat a snack, his mother would fly at him and tear at his hair, screaming in this way," – Javert suddenly raised his voice to a comical old crone's screech – "'Every woman on our block's got good obedient children, so how have I sinned before the Good Lord that he sent me a son with a liking for unripe apples?'" Yes, it was a sad story indeed," remarked Javert as he watched Cosette slide off her chair and under the table in a helpless fit of uncontrollable laughter. "Made all the papers at the time. It is really quite unkind of you to laugh at the poor gentleman's misfortune, mademoiselle."

And, ignoring Valjean's dumbfounded gaze and the scant applause from the surrounding tables, Javert clicked his tongue several times in mock dismay and downed the rest of his wine.


	8. Thoughts of a Gamin by Ithilmir

Whilst this was going on, back in the cells of the police post Gavroche sat quietly in a corner. This was very unusual, as he was rarely quiet while performing any activity, including sleeping. The reason for his silence was at the moment Gavroche was thinking, and truthfully, he was deeply confused. The fact he had managed to find his way to a police post was in itself a bit of mystery. The agent to whom he had been entrusted had found he was required elsewhere and had hastily deposited the gamin in the nearest secure location, leaving instructions to get word to Javert as to the change of plan. Au result, the urchin had been there ever since.

At this particular moment Gavroche was thinking about the scene in the Place. He'd been quite close to the action and therefore had got an excellent view of proceedings. That's all he had been doing; watching. He wasn't doing nothing, why'd they think they could bang him up for just watching? What did he do? He'd jeered the crowd on and bit a copper when they tried to nab him, but that weren't bad, was it? Can't be banged up for that, can you?

It did not for a moment occur to him that this time the police actually wanted to talk to him, and his excellent vantage point, not his actions at all, was the reason for his being detained.

Gavroche rubbed the hair under his grubby cap thoughtfully. He wasn't exactly sure what it was he'd seen back in the square, but whatever it was he'd definitely seen it. What's more it puzzled him. He didn't really understand politics beyond _vox populi_, despite his time spent hanging around the ABCs; but even with his limited knowledge he could sense that somehow this was Political. Badly Political. That meant if the police thought he was involved he would be in serious trouble, and having already narrowly escaped the clutches of the Petite rue St. Anne, the measure of how much trouble was not lost on him.

The underground room containing the cells wasn't that large. It housed about four cells measuring about 3'x4'; two on either side of the room facing each other for symmetry's sake, with a large communal cell one end, steps leading up to the main office the other. Just to the left of these steps there was a small pot-bellied stove attached to the wall and, next to it, almost directly in front of the cell Gavroche was occupying sat a gendarme on a wooden chair; a musket across his lap.

On the other side of the room was a rather pasty-looking figure sitting huddled on a chair. He looked like one of the petit bourgeoisie that could be seen walking in the more fashionable areas of the city, only slightly scruffier, and definitely more threadbare. For a moment Gavroche frowned, wondering what he was being held for, then smiled as he both recognised the man and realised why he had been in the Place. Beginning to feel a little more at home, the gamin then turned the attention of his increasing boredom on the gendarme, who was at this moment taking a sip of wine from his mug.

"Hey, flat-head!" he shouted at the gendarme. "I'm a political prisoner, ain't I?"

The gendarme started slightly, nearly choking on his wine. Once he'd managed to compose himself again he turned and looked at the gamin incredulously.

"You _what_?"

"The scuffle was political, weren't it?" continued Gavroche, arms folded across his chest, chin stuck out defiantly. "If I'm a political prisoner, then I want a lawyer."

"Oh shut it, you little twerp," grumbled the gendarme, settling back into his chair again. But Gavroche was not to be deterred.

"I mean it, I want a lawyer!" Gavroche pointed to the scruffy bourgeoisie sitting huddled across the room. "See, he's a lawyer; that one over there! You'll be my lawyer, won't you M. Pontmercy?"

The unsettled Marius jumped at having been addressed. On seeing the grinning gamin he turned a shade paler, gripping his fingers tighter around his books and turned to gaze at the floor.

"Cheer up, monsieur! With your legal skill you'll be out in no time! Failing that, I'll sweet-talk the judge for you!"

"I said shut it!" snapped the guard, flinging the mug so it clattered against the bars. Having temporarily

silenced the gamin, the policeman, seeming to remember his manners, turned to Marius.

"Sorry 'bout that, monsieur," he said, apologetically. "Little brat's got a right mouth on him; can't do anything to help 'em."

Seeing Marius' continued unrest the gendarme paused for a moment, then said in an attempt to console the young man;

"The Inspector shouldn't be long now, monsieur."

Slightly ruffled, Gavroche settled back down in the corner, pulling his cap low over his eyes and glaring at the gendarme from underneath the brim. 'The Inspector'… three guesses as to who that would be! Oh, this was not going to be fun at all; old thatched-face would have it in for him from the start. Well, he wasn't going down without a fight. He wouldn't talk; let the cops figure it out for themselves. That was their job, weren't it? They're paid to sort stuff out, well let them do it! Why should he care? Besides, it'd be funny to watch them struggle with _this_ one; not knowing what Gavroche had seen. He'd seen it. They'd never guess; not in a million years.

With that, Gavroche leaned back against the cell wall, folding his arms behind his head, and started to whistle. Outside, the gendarme swore.


End file.
